1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for control performed when a document is registered in a management server from an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, devices, such as multi-function peripherals that have many functions including a scanner can be linked with services on the Internet. For example, such devices can send a document scanned by that device to a server on the Internet for registration of the document, or can download a document from the server to print the document by the device.
However, the amount of information that can be displayed on a display mounted on the device is smaller as compared with a personal computer (PC). Furthermore, the operability of interfaces, e.g., buttons, mounted on the device is lower than that of a keyboard and a mouse for a PC.
For example, the device does not have such a high degree of operability that enables a user to open and refer to documents on a server from the device to select a document to be deleted. Therefore, desired processing is to be executed with a minimum number of operations required in the device.
Conventionally, at the time a user attempts to upload a scan document scanned in by a device to a server for registration of the scan document, if free space in a contract area on the server is too small to register the scan document, the server returns an error to the device. In this case, the user cannot register the scan document.
Hence, the user is to delete, from a personal computer or other equipment, unnecessary ones of the documents registered in the contract area on the server to reserve free space in the contract area, and then attempt to register the scan document from the device again.
As described above, devices often do not have such high functionality that allows users to open and refer to documents on a server from the device. With user interfaces (UIs) currently available on devices, users cannot easily perform operations such as deleting appropriate documents.
To address this, a technique is discussed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 07-013817. Specifically, for a file in a file storage device, a user can set beforehand an option indicating that the file can be deleted. If an overflow occurs at the time of registration of a new file, the unnecessary file is automatically deleted according to the setting of the option.
Also, in the technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 07-013817, files in the file storage device are moved into a specific storage area, and only links are left in the original area. In this way, a recording area is secured in the file storage device. The files in the specific storage area are periodically saved to another storage medium.
Conventionally, as described above, when a contract area on a server does not have sufficient free space, the user is to perform the complicated operation of organizing documents in the contract area from a personal computer or other equipment, and then performing a registration process again.
In the technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 07-013817, for each file in the file storage device, the user is to set in advance an option indicating that the file can be deleted or moved. Moreover, among the data already registered, data that the user desires to delete may change each time, depending on the data to be newly registered.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 07-013817 is based on the assumption that the user can use any areas, including the file storage device, the specific storage area, and the other storage medium, without particular limitations, and hence uses, for example, links to manage files. However, recently, storage areas, including a save area, that can be used by users are generally limited. The technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 07-013817 is thus practically difficult to employ.
Therefore, conventionally, when a contract area on a server does not have sufficient free space, it is difficult to properly complete registration of a scan document by performing a single document-registration operation from a device.